


and because it is my heart

by vulpineRaconteur



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Multi, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 08:32:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3930061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpineRaconteur/pseuds/vulpineRaconteur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(3/12/16) NOTICE: Currently in the process of reworking this entire story, I do not recommend reading it at this time.  Thanks.</p>
<p>Following the destruction of Kirkwall's Grand Cathedral, Warden-Commander Desdemona Amell has one task for Zevran: bring Anders to me.  And so a man with ghosts on his heels runs away, not knowing what he will find, but he's not the only one in need of redemption.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and because it is my heart

In the desert  

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,  

Who, squatting upon the ground,  

Held his heart in his hands,  

And ate of it.  

I said, “Is it good, friend?”  

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it  

“Because it is bitter,  

“And because it is my heart.”  

  

-Stephen Crane  

 

⊰⋇⊱

 

"Why is she even bothering?"  

The mage's question surprised Zevran.  

"With what, pray tell?"  

"With me."  

Zevran was on the long road to the west, beyond Orlais, beyond the reach of the Blight, to once again see Warden-Commander Desdemona Amell.  He had made the journey a handful of times since she left Thedas proper to find a cure for the Calling--an endeavor Zevran was very eager to see her succeed at.  He would stay for a time, share news, enjoy her company, mostly naked, then bid her farewell again, so as not to distract from her work.  This was the first time, however, that he had made the journey with company apart from his horse.  

Desdemona had known Anders in two of her past lives: in her brief time at Amaranthine, almost a decade ago, and for years before that, in Ferelden's Circle of Magi.  When Zevran had sent her news of Kirkwall, and told her of Anders' involvement, Desdemona tasked him with finding the mage and bringing him to her.  Zevran had not asked her why.  He had done as asked, tracked him down to the miserable hole he'd been hiding in, and taken him away.  

"It is no bother, my friend," he told Anders, employing his most charming smile.  "I was going to spend all those favors anyway.  Better to find you with them than to buy out a brothel for a month, yes?"  

Anders startled.  “Oh,” he said softly.  “I thought, you and Desdemona were…”  

“Lovers?” Zevran offered.  “Attached?  Married, perhaps?”  Zevran sighed, a dreamy look crossing his face.  “Something like that.  She is...better than I will ever be.  She is the light of my life, my sun and my moon, my reason for living...et cetera, et cetera."  He twirled his hand through the air in a dismissive gesture.  "I also only see her for two months out of the year, and you know what they say: I'm in love, not dead."  

An indignant look appeared on Anders' face.  "Does she know about this?"  

Zevran laughed.  "My friend, I did not even have to ask.  The first time I prepared to leave her in that wilderness, she told me I could have all the fun I wanted, because she knows that, to me, sex is just a game, a pastime.  I can play it with someone I love, or…with someone I'm only just getting to know."  Zevran looked at Anders then, smiled coquettishly, and winked.  

"Well, she certainly has you pegged," Anders said, smirking, quite against his will, Zevran thought.  "It might have been the first thing she told me about you.  'If you ever meet him, he  _will_  try to sleep with you.'  Hawke said the same thing."  

"Ah yes!" Zevran said.  "The apostate cousin.  Our meeting was, sadly, quite brief.  Did you ever find yourself in that bed?"  

"Me and Marian?”  Zevran was delighted to see a rush of color come into Anders' face.  “No.  She is a remarkable woman, but…not that I think she ever considered….”  He was silent for a moment.  “I knew it would never end well.”  

Zevran took a good look at his companion.  Anders was thin, thinner, Zevran guessed, than he had been the last time Desdemona had seen him.  His cheeks were gaunt, and there were dark half moons under his eyes.  Still very handsome, of course, but in a wasted sort of way.  He had the look of a man who had gone uncared for for a long time.  

“What would you have done," Zevran asked, "had the Lady Hawke sought your affections?”  

A grin twitched Anders' mouth.  “Now that’s a conversation I imagined many times.  But I suppose, in reality, I would have told her to stay as far away from me as she could.  I would only end up hurting her.”  

Zevran nodded.  “That,” he said.  “Just like Dessa, you care more about the people who are important to you than your own happiness.  That is why she is bothering.”  

  

⊰⋇⊱  

  

The country west of the Free Marches, beyond the wasted Anderfels and situated on the southern end of the Volca Sea, was a place that had never seen the Blight.  It was as much a mystery as anything else related to the Darkspawn, but they had never set foot there.  Anders could feel it as they entered the western foothills of the Hunterhorn Mountains, a shift in his psyche.  He felt it like a clear breeze, like a lifting of something from over his eyes.  He was so shocked with relief he laughed out loud.  

“Unbelievable,” he said.  “I haven’t felt like this since before my Joining.  This is the clearest my head has been in almost seven years.”  

Anders looked at Zevran when he heard him chuckle.  "Desdemona said the same thing, when we came out here the first time.  We should camp soon, but we will be with her by tomorrow night."  

At those words, Anders' stomach clenched.  It had been two months since Zevran found him in the Free Marches.  The journey had been a hard one: they'd moved on foot at first, and only at night.  When they reached the Anderfels, they'd purchased hardy horses that could take them over the mountains, and a third to carry supplies.  Zevran was a very considerate traveling companion.  Anders rarely felt like talking, so Zevran filled the silence with unlikely stories of his time with the Antivan Crows.  The longer he talked, and the further they got from Kirkwall, the lighter the weight in Anders' stomach became, and the more words spilled past his lips.  He dug deep in his mind to find stories that were more entertaining than depressing, pleased whenever he could make Zevran laugh.  

But now, with their destination so much closer than where they started, Anders' thoughts turned inward again.  Soon, he would have to face her: Warden-Commander Amell.  He remembered her from the Fereldan Circle.  She was older than him by a few years, and was already a troublemaker when they met.  She did well in her lessons, was a promising mage, but never mixed well with the others.  She was too angry, too full of a tempered fire to make any friends, among the apprentices or the mages.  

Anders had admired her, mostly from afar.  When other mages did what the templars asked, she fought them at every turn.  Unlike Anders, though, she never made an escape attempt.  In retrospect, he considered this a sign of wisdom.  What had his efforts ever gotten him, apart from beatings and solitary confinement?  After Desdemona left with the Wardens, and Jowan proved himself to be what he was, Anders was determined to escape for good.  Before long he did, and found himself without a destination.  He wandered for a time, dodging darkspawn and other consequences of a Blight, until he found himself, a year later, in a place called Vigil's Keep.  And who should be there to greet him, to save him from the Templars, but Warden Amell herself.  

And he had joined the Wardens gladly, seeing it as the one way to outrun the Templars for good.  He and Desdemona spent hours talking, and he could see her flame was tempered no more.  She had seen horrors in the Blight, things she wouldn't tell him, but she was happy and alive like no Circle mage Anders had ever seen.  It gave him something like hope, to see a transformation like hers.  Until later that year, when he and Justice had been reassigned, away from Desdemona, and Justice and he--  

With the Warden-song quiet now, for the first time in some months, Anders could hear another voice in his mind, one that had been silent in its satisfaction since Kirkwall.  Vengeance, vindicated, had become more the spirit it had once been, calmer, slower, but still there, still harboring expectations for its host.  How long would this reprieve last?  

And what would Desdemona say, when she saw what had become of her friend Justice?  What had become of Anders?  He imagined the disappointment in her face and almost turned back toward the mountains right there.  

  

⊰⋇⊱  

  

A day later, and Anders could detect a new lightness in Zevran, an eagerness.  They ate their midday meal in the saddle, and it was just barely twilight when they arrived.  It was late fall, and the pine forest they found themselves in was cool in the growing dark.  Despite the gloaming, Zevran had no trouble leading them to their destination.  It was once, perhaps, best described as a cave, but the warm light spilling from the finely carved entrance suggested something more like a home.  The archway had been intricately decorated, Anders saw, with designs that probably looked like idle scrawlings to the average passerby.  It even took Anders a second look, but he could see the wards and warnings hidden within.  

And then, there she was, silhouetted in the light from the cave, face obscured by shadow.  Zevran climbed off his horse before it had even stopped moving and rushed to her.  Desdemona was almost a head taller than he was, and she cupped her hands to his jaw, lifting his face for a long kiss.  She murmured something to him Anders could not hear, and Zevran responded.  Anders was reminded suddenly that this was an intimate moment he had not been invited to, and turned away, setting himself to unloading his horse.  

"Anders," Desdemona said, and his name in her voice sent a twitch through his ears.  He turned to her, and the soft look of easing worry in her eyes put a panic in him he couldn’t name.  He responded with the most sarcastic thing he could think of.  

“Warden-Commander,” he said to her, with a slight bow.  He felt awkward, and could tell she did, too, but she just came up to him, hands outstretched.  

"Anders," she said again, and tried to find somewhere on him to put her hands: his wrists, his shoulders, his face, but she kept searching.  Her fingers on his body, even through his clothes, was like electricity.  How long had it been since another person had touched him?  Five years at least, probably more.  She was staring at him, too, an unreadable mix of emotions on her face.  

"You..."  She struggled for a moment.  "I'm glad you're...safe."  She laughed.  "Sorry.  Going ten months without speaking to another person has taken its toll on my social skills."  

Anders stared at her, absorbing the fact of her presence, and then he felt as if everything hit him all at once.  Everything that had happened since he last saw her--Justice, Hawke, Ella, Meredith, everything--washed over him and he felt his knees give out, and then he was holding onto her, being held up by her, and she put her arms around him tight.  

"I messed up," he said.  

She was silent for almost a minute before she told him "You're here now.  You're....  You're here, and that's what matters."  

With Anders still draped on her body, Desdemona walked him into the cave.  He was startled to see how much it looked like a home.  They were in a hallway, with empty doorways leading off it.  It even intersected another hallway at the end, with the promise of more rooms beyond.  Desdemona lead him into the first one they came to on their left.  

It was brightly lit by the large fire pit in the center.  A fire pit in a cave struck Anders as foolish, but looking up, he saw that a smoke hole had been built into the cave ceiling, and it presumably led out into the air.  There was an empty cooking apparatus built over the fire pit, and a collection of cushions on display around it.  Desdemona set Anders down on one of these, then sat down beside him.  

Anders composed himself, embarrassed that he had let his misery out for even a moment.  She was already taking him in.  He couldn't expect her to carry any of that burden, too.  He just looked at her, and she looked back at him, and they were silent, too full of words to say anything.  

"I expect," Anders finally said, "that you want to know what happened."  

She nodded.  "Zev couldn't tell me much.  But we don't have to talk about it before you're ready."  

He could feel it all welling up inside him, filling the space behind his teeth, but he pressed it down.  She deserved better than to know what had become of him.  "I would keep the whole sorry story from you, if I thought I could."  

She looked down at her hands and shook her head.  He took his first good look at her then.  She was thin, where she had been near to plump in Amaranthine.  Her hair was longer than it had been, and he had the impression she had brushed it in a hurry before they arrived.   _I must look quite the same,_ he thought.  Too long with not enough food or use of a looking glass.  He squeezed his hands together in his lap, because he had been about to reach out to her.  

" _Mi amor,_ " Zevran said as he entered the room, laden with packages, "did you, by any chance, prepare a meal in anticipation of our arrival?"  

"Erm, no," Desdemona said, looking up at Zevran sheepishly.  

"I see.  And when was the last time you ate, I wonder?"  Unable to answer, she just shifted her expression into one of contrition, and Zevran sighed.  "I will go to the creek for water, then."  

"Actually," Dessa said, climbing gracelessly to her feet, "I rigged up a pipe system to pull water into the cave.  See?"  She led him to a spigot on the wall, which she twisted.  Water gushed onto the floor, and she turned it off again.  "Finished it a while ago.  I've got plans for an indoor bath, next."  

Zevran laughed and wrapped an arm around her waist.  "What a clever mage I found."  

"You're only now noticing?" she teased.  

They filled a clean cooking pot with water and set it over the fire to boil.  Zevran produced a variety of foods from his parcels, and they all chopped and sliced and poured things into the pot, then lay back to wait.  They passed around the last of the road food while they waited for their ingredients to become soup.  

Zevran was leaning against Dessa's side, his head on her shoulder, smiling as he chewed.  Her hand found his and she laced their fingers together.  Anders tore small chunks off his stale bread and ate them one by one.  "So," he said, "I'm here.  Now what?"  

Desdemona considered the question.  "I hadn't gotten that far in the plan," she admitted.  "Zevran made it clear you weren't safe in the Free Marches, or anywhere the Chantry could reach, so I just--I wanted to be sure you were safe.”  She smiled weakly at him, and he looked down at his hands, ashamed.  

“Tell him about your work,” Zevran said, spitting crumbs.  

“Right, well, okay,” she said.  “I've not had anyone to explain it to yet, so let me think, where to start.  Well before I tell you about my current round of experiments, I want you to know I'm not doing blood magic.  I only need the blood to test it, you see, I haven’t dealt with any demons or anything.  So a lot of what I've done lately is try different cleansing spells on isolated samples, only I've never been much at spirit school things, and I could only bring so many books with me—“  

“Hang on,” Anders said.  “What are you doing, exactly?”  

Zevran laughed.  “You should have started at the beginning,  _mi amor_.”  

“Oh,” she said, color rising in her cheeks.  “I suppose I should have.”  

Before she could say anything else, they all heard a loud bark from outside the cave, followed by the click of claws on stone.  A mabari entered the kitchen, a trail of water dribbling behind it.  It barked again and bounded over to Zevran, bowling him and Desdemona over.  

“Aw, Zev!” Desdemona said, laughing, “Hogarth missed you.”  

“Yes, if only he still missed me,” Zevran said, while the mabari licked his face.  

“Hogarth!” Dessa said sharply, and the dog backed off Zevran and stood at attention.  “Do you remember Anders, Hogarth?”  

Anders grimaced at the mabari.  “What happened to him?  He's dripping wet.”  

“He washed off in the creek, clever boy,” Desdemona said, scratching him behind the ear.  “He must have really been nasty to do that without being told.”  

Anders made a face.  “Charming.”  

She continued to scratch behind his ear, smiling down at the animal, then shouted “Oh Maker!  He interrupted me, didn’t he?  I'm—my work—I want to cure--I'm going to find a cure for the Taint.”  

Anders felt something cold spread through his insides, like a balm on irritated skin.  "Are you really?"  

"Well," she said quietly, then shook her head, as though to clear it.  "I am, Anders.  I'm going to cure it, whatever it takes."  She looked down at Zevran, who had shifted to wrap his arms around her.  "It's already been seven years since my Joining.  I only have three more before I have to fall asleep every night wondering if this is the night the dreams come back.  And I'm not about to accept that.  The Wardens..."  She wiped at her eyes.  

"They take the best years of your life and then you die for them.  Certainly, many of us joined by choice, but I didn't.  You didn't.  The Templars or the Wardens?  That's no choice at all.  How many in our ranks faced the same not-choice?  More than a few that I met in Amaranthine.  We give up so much, for the Wardens, to save everyone.  We should not have to die--we should not have to die.  If the world only knew what--"  She stopped.  

Zevran watched Anders closely, attentive to any signs of disapproval.  He had never said it to Dessa, but Zevran worried that her research would not be so welcome to the Grey Wardens.   The taint was a part of their identity.  The sacrifice it required of them, well, it was in their motto.  Something like what Dessa intended to do could tear the Order apart.  Not that Zevran was so concerned with that, nor was Desdemona when it came down to it.  But it was the sort of endeavor that got—well.  It got people like Zevran sent after you.  Though, as his love had proven, that was hardly a problem for her.  

But this man, this Anders, apostate, Warden, abomination—who was he?  Where did his loyalties lie?  His shoulders tense, his face drawn tight, Anders said nothing for a moment.  Then he leaned over to Desdemona and put a hand on hers.  “How can I help?”  

Dessa smiled broadly at him, her eyes shining.  “You can start by eating a real meal, and getting a good night's sleep.”  

 

⊰⋇⊱ 

 

After the soup, hunger sated, Desdemona took Anders down the hallway to show him the rest of the cave.  The walls were smooth, with curved ceilings.  She explained to him that it hadn't been anything more than a standard cave when they'd found it four years ago.  In that time she has used magic to shape it into something livable, creating a kitchen, a bedroom, and a labratory for her work.  the short hallway led past the spacious bedroom and branched left and right.  To the right was the lab space, which Zevran insisted they avoid for the night.  To the left were two smaller, rougher rooms, and a dark beyond, the natural part of the cave that Dessa hadn't worked in yet.  One of these rooms was for Anders.  

"I threw it together," Dessa said, "after I told Zev to bring you.  The bed is a little...well, we are out in the middle of nowhere after all.  Ours is like this too, but a bit roomier."  The "bed" was a pile of dried grasses and leaves, collected into a shallow, person-sized depression in the floor, with thick furs thrown over it.  It had a lovely red quilt, though, and Zevran revealed that one of the packages they had carried across the continent was a decent feather pillow.  

"Not much privacy either, I'm afraid.  I'll get to work on doors soon."  

"It's nice," Anders said hastily.  "I'm very grateful."  

Dessa smiled, then took his hands in hers.  "I'm glad you're here, Anders.  I'm--it's good that you're here.  Now get some rest.  And, um, so will we."  Zevran was tugging at the belt of her robes, egging her out of the room.  "The privy is outside, down the hill a bit.  See you in the morning, alright?"  They left.  

Anders waited until he heard their voices move to their own room, then stripped off his travel-worn robes.  He threw them in a heap on the stone floor, put out the light, and crawled into the bed.  It was oddly cozy, its edges surrounding him, and as he lay still under the quilt's weight, he felt something in him ease.  There had been a tension around his mind, keeping things in place, but now all his grief swept through him.  He felt the weight of all that had been lost: his city, so many people in it who deserved something better, the precious few who had cared for him.  That night--  

_Standing in the courtyard, keeping the Templars off, waiting for Hawke, watching the gateway, seeing Aveline march through first, then Isabela, weapons ready, Merrill trailing behind and finally_

_Hawke, and a body in her arms, darkly dressed, with an unmistakable head of white hair.  Fenris.  Who had stood by the Templars, as Anders always knew he would.  He must have gone after her, must have fought her, must have_

_Her eyes were dry, but she held him so close.  Her brother--the Hawke siblings had never gotten along--her brother ran to her, spoke to her, gently took the body from her and laid it--him in the lee of a wall.  Hawke knelt beside him, one hand pressed to her face, Merrill, Maker bless her, Merrill beside her.  And Meredith_

_After the final confrontation, once the knight-commander had met her end, Hawke went back to his body, tried to take him, but Aveline and Varric had dragged her away--"There's no time, Hawke, I'm sorry"--_

_And on the road outside Kirkwall, when they were far enough to stop for a moment, and Hawke finally crumbled.  Anders had only seen her crying a handful of times in six years, but this_

_He left her to her sorrow, did not dare force his company on her, not after what he did._

The guilt became real then.  It had been distant before, save for in that small moment outside.  He had known that he must feel that way, and now he finally did.  He felt hollow, like an emptied-out person, and that guilt was the only thing rattling around inside him.  

Hawke shouldn't have let him live.  It was that simple.  But Merrill's words echoed in his mind:  _he should come with us, make up for what he's done._   He would do that now.  He would dedicate what remained of his life, what remained of him, to righting wrongs.  Be the vessel Justice deserved.  The thought comforted him.  

He shut his eyes, and drifted off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this remarkably self-indulgent first chapter. If I write as much as I've imagined, this will be a very long story indeed. Stay tuned for more. Or do whatever, I'm not your boss.


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